Digital Voices of the Future: Children's visions of future UK treescapes revealed through gaming

未来的数字之声：通过游戏揭示孩子们对未来英国树景的愿景

• 批准号: NE/Y004159/1
• 负责人: Simon Carr
• 金额: $ 10.45万
• 依托单位: University of Cumbria
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FY004159%2F1
• 关键词: Digital; Voices; Future; Children; visions

The future of UK treescapes belongs to the children and young people of today: they will witness and judge the long-term legacy of the UK Treescapes programme. Yet, interdisciplinary research that explores their engagement with treescapes temporally and spatially remains rare. Voices of the Future (VoF: NE/V021370/1) has co-produced research seeking to understand and engage children with valuing treescapes in a meaningful, hopeful manner. Even from their early years, childrens' understanding of the form and function of treescapes has been found to be nuanced and sophisticated and is usually framed within the challenges associated with observed and predicted climate change. VoF is generating research impact within educational and environmental policy and practice at local, regional and national levels. However, the impact of VoF needs scaling-up with the most important stakeholders, the children themselves. This knowledge exchange proposal seeks to address this gap to amplify the reach to a potential global audience of millions through different gaming environments.Every child experiences treescapes differently, but what might this mean for their imaginings and world-making? Is it possible for an online environment to be the dreaming, thinking, sharing and making space for children to predict and model the different treescapes of their futures? Can we use online environments as a space to democratise knowledge exchange, both amplifying and empowering the voices of children in the planning and planting of real UK Treescapes?The project applies key findings of VoF to co-produce and share game environments enabling children to visualise and explore what future treescapes could look like as a response to different choices made within their lifetimes. By simulating existing and new treescapes within real-world contexts, we can apply new knowledge of carbon storage and how children understand treescapes arising from VoF into game environments. This will afford children opportunities to envisage the worlds they would like to inhabit in symbiosis with their treescapes and experience a simulation of futures that are otherwise challenging to imagine, and even harder to place themselves within.The project centres on 7 encounters between children (8-13 years) at 2 schools within The Mersey Forest locale (Parklands Primary School, Ellesmere Port Catholic High School) and the project team to co-design and develop games using two platforms: Roblox & Unity. Each encounter comprises 2 days (1 day at each school), with each day involving two 60-90 minute interactive co-design and production workshops, each of ~30 children. This will engage ~120 children in game design and development. Between encounters, the project team will compile and incorporate the resources developed in each workshop into development of assets, mechanics and narratives within the two game environments. The Mersey Forest community woodland will host an event beyond the end of the project to link game development with real-world community tree planting.The outputs of the project will comprise immersive (Unity) and interactive (Roblox) online games enabling users to develop, visualise & share treescapes in their own real world and imagined settings. Modelling and simulating the outcome of tree planting and management in these environments will visualise how treescapes may look in the future, and can visualise and quantify the environmental (e.g. carbon sequestration, microclimate, biodiversity) socio-economic and cultural benefits provided by treescapes. These games offer potentially global scaling (Roblox has ~145 million monthly users, mainly children) of knowledge-exchange opportunities. The case example working with The Mersey Forest will evaluate how playful approaches and gaming can offer a powerful mechanism to incorporate the voice of children into the planning of treescapes and woodlands, through input to the 2025 revision of The Mersey Forest Plan

英国树木的未来属于当今的儿童和年轻人：他们将目睹和判断英国树木景观的长期遗产。然而，跨学科的研究探索了他们在时间和空间上与树木的互动仍然很少见。未来的声音（VOF：NE/V021370/1）共同制作了研究，试图以有意义的，充满希望的方式了解和吸引儿童，并以估值树木。即使从他们早年开始，也发现儿童对树木的形式和功能的理解是细微的和精致的，并且通常在与观察到的气候变化相关的挑战中构成。 VOF正在在地方，地区和国家一级的教育和环境政策和实践中产生研究影响。但是，VOF的影响需要与最重要的利益相关者，孩子们自己进行扩展。这项知识交流建议旨在解决这一差距，以通过不同的游戏环境扩大到达数百万的全球受众的影响力。每个孩子的经历都不同，但是这对他们的想象力和世界创造而言可能意味着什么？在线环境是否有可能成为梦想，思考，共享和为孩子们预测和建模其未来树木景观的空间吗？我们可以使用在线环境作为一个空间来使知识交流民主化，既可以在计划和种植真正的英国树木的计划和种植中增强和增强儿童的声音？该项目应用了VOF的关键发现来共享游戏环境，并使儿童能够可视化和探索哪些未来的树木在其生活中可以响应哪些选择，从而在他们的生活中做出了什么回应。通过模拟现实世界中环境中的现有和新的树木，我们可以应用碳存储的新知识，以及孩子们如何理解从VOF引起的树木构成游戏环境。 This will afford children opportunities to envisage the worlds they would like to inhabit in symbiosis with their treescapes and experience a simulation of futures that are otherwise challenging to imagine, and even harder to place themselves within.The project centres on 7 encounters between children (8-13 years) at 2 schools within The Mersey Forest locale (Parklands Primary School, Ellesmere Port Catholic High School) and the project team to co-design and develop games using two platforms: Roblox＆Unity。每次遭遇包括2天（每所学校1天），每天都涉及两个60-90分钟的互动共同设计和生产研讨会，每个孩子都有约30个孩子。这将使约有120名儿童参与游戏设计和开发。在遭遇之间，项目团队将编译并将每个研讨会中开发的资源纳入两个游戏环境中的资产，力学和叙事的发展。默西森林社区林地将举办一个超出项目结束的活动，将游戏开发与现实世界的社区种植联系起来。该项目的输出将包括沉浸式（Unity）和Interactive（Roblox）在线游戏，使用户能够在自己的真实世界和图像设置中开发，可视化和共享树木。在这些环境中，建模和模拟植树的结果将可视化树木的外观，并可以可视化和量化树木习惯提供的环境（例如碳固执，微气候，生物多样性）社会经济和文化益处。这些游戏提供了潜在的全球规模（Roblox拥有约1.45亿个每月用户，主要是儿童）知识交换机会。与默西森林合作的案例示例将评估如何使用娱乐方式和游戏来提供有力的机制，以将儿童的声音纳入树木景观和林地的规划中，并通过投入到2025年的默西森林计划的修订版。